Ryan budget passes on partisan vote

Split along party lines, the House approved a new Republican-backed budget Thursday that promises to cut by half the 10-year deficits forecast by President Barack Obama but also walks away from the landmark debt accords hammered out last summer.

Just 10 Republicans defected, and the 228-191 vote gives the embattled GOP leadership what it most wanted: a show of party unity behind a bold election-year vision that includes new private options for Medicare and a simplified Tax Code.

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But the price paid by Congress will be big: wrecking havoc with hard-fought bargains under the Budget Control Act and inviting another shutdown fight with Senate Democrats and Obama unless the House again reverses course.

When lawmakers return in mid-April from their spring recess, House and Senate Appropriations Committees must write their annual spending bills using two sets of instructions now— instead of one as envisioned under the Budget Control Act. And the Republican resolution orders six other House committees to quickly come up by April 27 an additional $261 billion in 10-year savings to substitute for automatic reductions in defense in January—under the same Budget Act.

The Armed Services Committee is exempted entirely—breaking faith with the spirit of the August accords. And instead, food stamps, healthcare programs, and federal worker retirement benefits are prime targets, together with a heavy bet on upwards of $50 billion in long-term savings attributed to proposed medical liability reforms.

The target effective date for this legislation will be July 1—an almost impossible schedule given the anticipated opposition in the Senate. And caught most in the middle is the House Agriculture Committee, which is trying to write a bipartisan five-year farm bill and will instead be diverted into what promises to be a divisive fight over food stamp cuts.

For example, the budget specifically asks the panel to come up with $8.2 billion in savings for 2012-2013 and recommends that it meet this goal by quickly repealing a temporary expansion of benefits initiated in the Recovery Act in 2009. Those added benefits are already slated to be phased out entirely by November 2013, but the budget appears to assume close to $7 billion in savings by moving that date up to July 1.

Robert Greenstein, president of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, told POLITICO that the average family of four would lose about $600 in anticipated benefits and the adjustment would be more abrupt without the planned phase down. Thus in the last three months of this fiscal year, the cut could be as much as $57 a month –a hard sell for most Democrats.